Explaining the Business of Entertainment
We’re switching things up this week. Since Nielsen delayed this week’s streaming ratings data, you’ll get the “Most Important Story of the Week” column today, and the “Streaming Ratings Report” on Monday. Sound good? If so, then onto the big story of the week, which I’ve been itching to write
Jerry Seinfeld had a terrific joke about the news: somehow there was always enough for the daily newspaper. Never more, never less. Well, the internet blew that up by magnitudes. It turns out we–as a society/community–can crank out tons of words on anything. But is it all “news”? Maybe? Probably
When you go long writing about OnlyFans, some stuff winds up on the cutting room floor. But let’s not leave it there! Let’s pick it up, dust it off, and give you a bonus 1,200 words of my thoughts on the entertainment strategy of last week. (Sign up for my
Ever get a phrase stuck in your head? Like an ear worm? I had one of those this week, as I debated between anointing ViacomCBS, Comcast or Discovery as the “most important” story of the week. To exorcise that mental demon, and to mix metaphors, I plan to debunk it
With no “big” entertainment news, my gaze fell on a story simmering all month. Call it the “story of the month”, which is that TV is planning its return to the small screen. By TV, I mean broadcast and cable television. Which are, obviously, dead. That’s the narrative. But since
Hopefully everyone enjoyed the annual football spectacular known as the Super Bowl. Instead of parsing which ads did the best–we don’t have a data driven way to do that–or reviewing the half-time show–that’s what critics are for, I guess–we need to look for business lessons. Since we don’t have the
This week, The Starters (an NBA talk show and wildly popular podcast) was cancelled by…well we don’t know who. The Washington Post identified a few potential suspects. It could have been Turner or NBA TV–for the usual ratings reasons–or it could have been their corporate overlord, AT&T, mandating cuts across
Let’s get this update out on a Friday like it is intended. Most Important Story of the Week – Mergers and Acquisitions in 2018 Update (Finally!) For some reason, PwC never released their 2018 update for Media and Telecommunications merger & acquisitions update. Or if they did, I never saw
My goal when I started this week’s column was to avoid having another monster long column. We’ll see how I do this week, but I’m not optimistic. There was enough news for two weeks last week, and next week heralds much, much more. Before our most important story, let’s look
Early last week, I had an easy leading candidate for the “Most Important Story of the Week”. Then, on Thursday. AT&T had their “I am Spartacus” moment. Should I change just because that story took over Twitter and would get me more traffic? Nope, but it’ll be a contender. Most